SMS marketers must time messages to students with expert precision, says UCAS head

SMS marketers looking to target Britain’s growing population of students must time their messages to coincide with lulls in their schedules.

This is according to UCAS Media’s head of sales Keith Parkman, who explains that students don’t often have the time to pay full attention to mobile adverts when they come through.

He stressed that not only should all SMS links be optimised for mobile – this being a given – but as students are always on the move, marketers must look at the timing of their messages.

“Marketing professionals should picture students looking at text and images while travelling on the bus, rushing to a lecture, or out socialising,” Mr Parkman told thedrum.com.

“They don’t have much time to spend looking at adverts and the impact has to be immediate. Now think – how do I get the right message to potential customers in that short window of opportunity?”

Mr Parkman’s comments also hinted that text marketing pros should try simplifying their content and convey just a handful of messages. This seeing as busy students might not have time to be wading their way through paragraphs of text.

His comments arrive in light of a study from UCAS Media highlighting that 82 per cent of those entering further education had a smartphone. According to tmcnet.com, this represents a 122 per cent increase since 2010, which makes students 40 per cent more likely to own a device than the rest of the UK population.